Talk to me about travel systems!

Trying to take my mind off the constant sickness. A friend has suggested the Jane brand of travel systems as she's had one for all 3 of her babies.

So my requirements are:

Got to fit in a Landrover Defender (Station Wagon, so back seats)Needs to be off road compatible. I have horses and baby needs to come too. Easy to fold away by myselfI'm after something that can be used from newborn for as long as possible. Do t want to get to 6 months and have to buy something else. I want something that is an all in one job, car seat, carrycot, pushchair etc.

For off-roading I really recommend a mountain buggy. Especially the older nz built models which are solid as tanks and pop up on eBay on great condition. Lovely carrycot attachment, and you can get car seat clips too.

Hi opwe have a Second hand (hardly used) graco quattro tour travel system for where i keep my horses. Very big and solid but we wo t be using it elsewhere. I had one with my DD nrly 10yrs ago and it worked a treat. Theres plenty of slidge and stones and general horsey crap where we are too. We have got a graco pram also (on a budget) the graco sky which fits the same carseat as the quattro tour so we dont need diff carseats. We will be having the sky in the car and quattro kept at stables. Saves on constant cleaning of one pram but the sky was brought new from toys r us. Did r see the point in spending monwy on a new one for stables incase of damage. Paid around £300 in total for both (graco had offer on for buying as system) which is quite cheap considering the cost of some. Hope to help xx

My friends had a Jane for their first with lots of off reading. But they suffered unending problems of punctured wheels! They sold it and swapped to a Phil and teds. He Jane is only compatible with their own car seats as far as I know too. My 'horsey' friend has a mountain buggy and loves it.

I have an icandy peach which has been in constant use for 5 years and I love it! It is compatible with maxi cost car seats, has a carrycot and buggy seat. We have been off-road with it and it's mostly gray, the mud does occasionally collect between the front wheels and the mudguards, but easy enough to clean out. The jogger version doesn't have the same front wheels so doesn't suffer this issue.

The Graco Evo is a great pram easy to fold with one hand and mine still looks like new after 3 years. It's not an off reader but they have just brought out one called Graco Evo XT which is more off reader type with good suspension and tyres

Definitely baby jogger with the bouncy off road tyres! One handed fold, very easy to clean, has carry cot etc. by far the best off road we have had, better than bugaboo by a long way imho. But I haven't tried mountain buggy. Can you get yo john Lewis or similar and compare mountain buggy to baby jogger? Make sure the latter has the big off road tyres not the thin non squishy rubber ones.

I picked up a second hand mountain buggy urban off gumtree, one of the older made in NZ models. Both DP and I have been impressed with it so far, but have only used it in the garden as baby isn't here yet (yes we are that childish!). It has suspension and inner tubes in the tyres so handles mud, gravel etc really well. We were both surprised at how light is was too and how easy it is to manoeuvre, you can have the front wheel locked straight (for running) or have it free so that it can rotate. You can pretty much take it to bits to replace/repair the parts and the MB online store still stock spares for older models. They were bought out by philnteds a few years ago and a lot of the parts are compatible with one another. So far I have bought a new carrycot which clips onto the frame and the adaptor clips for the maxi cosi car seat which turns it into a from birth travel system.

The downsides to it though are that it is bigger (longer and wider) than most buggies, although I believe they do smaller models. It doesn't fold up small, but this isn't an issue for us as I walk everywhere anyway and don't plan on putting it in the car often. We have a Nissan micra, but it does fit in the boot with nothing else in there so I guess it's not so huge. The other negative is that if you want it rear facing you have to buy a clip on seat or the carrycot as the standard seat os forward facing only.

On a side note, my SIL got a uppababy vista travel system. It looks really nice and everything clips on and off with one hand, but it is totally impractical for grass and mud. Anything soft gets stuck between the wheels and the castors/mudguard things and you end up dragging the darn thing along with half a field attached. I think the thing to look out for if you are planning on taking a travel system on all terrains it the size of the wheels and the clearance between the wheels and the top of the castors.